For the past month or so, Sony has funded these ‘Vita Hill Social Club’ locations in various big cities around the country. If you wander into one of these locations, you are greeted with staff who enter you in to a store raffle of sorts, set you up with a Vita to play with and cater you with drinks and food, all of which are on the house.

Sign in here and run a game ticket to see if you have won any of the prizes offered in the store. I won a koozie. Twice.

After you select a game that you would like to play, one of the staff members will walk you to a location with comfortable seating and fasten the Vita to a stylish mount via a steel cable. Once you are settled in, you are free to play (and change the game, via request) for as long as you like, as long as it isn’t too busy.

When closed, the mount on the table looks like a leather-bound book. Neat.

They also show you a menu that offers you complimentary drinks and snack bars. The location that I frequent in Cambridge, MA offers three flavours of Guayaki Organic Yerba Mate, Vita Coco (hurr hurr) and a handful of Kind Bars to choose from. I believe it does vary location to location, but free snacks are always an okay in my book.

Radical.

The atmosphere is set as a very laid back comfort zone. They designed this place so you can chill. Aside from the Vita systems, the spot also offers several Playstation 3D TV units complete with Playstation 3 consoles and 3D glasses, a photobooth, a magazine rack and plenty of areas of free seating. I am not sure who set the playlist, but the soundtrack was rather enjoyable with a lot of the more unknown indie artists being played, albeit playing from a MacBook (tsk, tsk).

Every Saturday, the store hosts various events that offer some pretty nifty prizes (from my knowledge, PSN cards). Sega held a Virtua Tennis event a few weeks ago, and a Reality Fighters event just passed. They are holding these events until the end of the month, so it isn’t too late to show up and try to win some swag. If you want to hold your own tournament with friends, simply request a time slot and the staff will work with you to have one set up.

These locations are amazingly fun and offer you a sneak peek at the Vita. If you are on the ropes about picking one up, this is a great way to experience the handheld for yourself to give you a more educated decision on a purchase. You can find a location in the following cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago and Austin.

Sony has announced that it will not release the UMD Passport program for when the Vita releases in the United States.

The Passport program allows Japanese PSP users to catalog their UMD versions of their games on PSN, and after paying a title transfer fee (different depending on the publisher/game) they would be able to download that game on their Vita.

PSP games purchased off of the Playstation Network will not be affected. These titles can still be accessed and played on the Vita.

First discovered by a few press members who received an advanced copy, Capcom has confirmed that there will be some misprinted copies shipped with the initial batch of the game.

This isn’t the first time in recent history where Capcom has shipped misprinted box art. Who doesn’t remember the IGN logo on the cover of the Wii release of Okami? If they follow up with a similar solution, early adopters may be treated to a corrected cover with a few additional alternatives at no cost.